Release Readiness Checklist

A release is ready when users can complete critical journeys safely — not when the build turned green.

01 — Purpose

Ready means users can succeed safely

Green CI is necessary. It is not sufficient.

Use this checklist before production releases — especially when user journeys, authentication, payments, or data handling change. Adapt sections to your team’s release cadence and risk profile.

02 — Functional

Functional checks

Prove the critical paths work — not only the path you tested during development.

  • sign-up, sign-in, and password recovery tested end to end
  • primary conversion or checkout journey verified on staging
  • forms submit, validate, and show success or specific errors
  • navigation, search, and filters behave as documented
  • file upload and download flows tested where applicable

03 — Quality

Accessibility and frontend quality

Do not ship a release you would not want to support on Monday.

  • Frontend QA checklist completed for user-facing changes
  • Accessibility QA checklist completed — keyboard and spot screen reader
  • performance smoke checks on changed high-traffic pages
  • SEO and metadata checklist completed for new or changed public pages
  • frontend security checklist completed when auth, forms, embeds, or client storage change
  • no known blocker bugs open without explicit acceptance

04 — Operations

Operational readiness

The deploy is only the beginning of what users experience.

  • analytics and key events verified in staging — not only in code review
  • feature flags or toggles documented; rollback path understood
  • monitoring and error reporting will surface new failures
  • status page or comms plan ready if the release is high risk
  • database migrations or API changes coordinated with backend owners

05 — Sign-off

Release sign-off

Someone accountable should be able to answer “what could go wrong?” without guessing.

  • changelog or release notes prepared for support and stakeholders
  • known limitations communicated — not discovered by customers
  • post-release verification plan — who checks production and when